Peer Communication in Online Mental Health Forums for Young People: Directional and Nondirectional Support

Abstract

BackgroundThe Internet has the potential to help young people by reducing the stigma associated with mental health and enabling young people to access services and professionals which they may not otherwise access. Online support can empower young people, help them develop new online friendships, share personal experiences, communicate with others who understand, provide information and emotional support, and most importantly help them feel less alone and normalize their experiences in the world.ObjectiveThe aim of the research was to gain an understanding of how young people use an online forum for emotional and mental health issues. Specifically, the project examined what young people discuss and how they seek support on the forum (objective 1). Furthermore, it looked at how the young service users responded to posts to gain an understanding of how young people provided each other with peer-to-peer support (objective 2).MethodsKooth is an online counseling service for young people aged 11-25 years and experiencing emotional and mental health problems. It is based in the United Kingdom and provides support that is anonymous, confidential, and free at the point of delivery. Kooth provided the researchers with all the online forum posts between a 2-year period, which resulted in a dataset of 622 initial posts and 3657 initial posts with responses. Thematic analysis was employed to elicit key themes from the dataset.ResultsThe findings support the literature that online forums provide young people with both informational and emotional support around a wide array of topics. The findings from this large dataset also reveal that this informational or emotional support can be viewed as directive or nondirective. The nondirective approach refers to when young people provide others with support by sharing their own experiences. These posts do not include explicit advice to act in a particular way, but the sharing process is hoped to be of use to the poster. The directive approach, in contrast, involves individuals making an explicit suggestion of what they believe the poster should do.ConclusionsThis study adds to the research exploring what young people discuss within online forums and provides insights into how these communications take place. Furthermore, it highlights the challenge that organizations may encounter in mediating support that is multidimensional in nature (informational-emotional, directive-nondirective).

Prevention of HIV and Other Sexually Transmissible Infections in Expatriates and Traveler Networks: Qualitative Study of Peer Interaction in an Online Forum (Preprint)

“…Interaction influenced knowledge and behavior related to health (including risk taking and health protection) and relationships as well as the migration experience. Our results, which resonate with findings from other research found this forum to be a strong resource for support and information [39,[64][65][66], including in the context of online peer based interventions to trial the provision of mental and sexual health promotion (also conducted by members of our research team) targeting same sex attracted young people and adult men who have sex with men [29]. Further exploration of the role of peer support in this context via a formal online outreach intervention may be warranted.…”

“…This advice and support was both directive (practical advice) and non-directive (sharing personal experiences) [39] and in particular focused on informational and emotional support. While many users may have initially joined the forum seeking information, participation continued due to the relationships formed with other members.…”

Qualitative analysis of UK and USA open mental health Facebook groups for mental health support (Preprint)

“…Often the disclosures from group members were detailed and offered a lot of personal information, similar to recent findings relating to online blogs [70], indicating that the poster felt that they were in a safe place to discuss their experiences. This is indicative of a sense of group cohesion, and is supportive of further research findings [27,34].…”

“…Findings suggest it is a valuable platform for sharing personal experiences of mental illness, increasing the individuals' perception of the level of social support they received [74,75] in addition to support gained from family, friends and professionals. By sharing personal experiences of their mental illness, Facebook users provided informational and emotional support to other group members that may not be available from the receivers own social network or professionals, in line with previous research [18,19,34]. This form of support may lead to increased feelings of connectedness for the receiver [67,78], and could potentially reduce feelings of social isolation [22][23][24]74], and may offer hope to people using Facebook for their mental illness [76], thus empowering them to seek help or take positive action.…”

“…This may increase the level of disclosure, which in turn could build trust and provide the knowledge that the online environment is a safe place, thus promoting group cohesion [27]. Other benefits of utilising online sources of support include reduced feelings of stigmatisation [28,29], and the capacity of the internet to access hard to reach demographic groups [30], such as men [31,32], young people [33][34][35][36], differing socioeconimic groups [37], and ethnic minorities [38].…”